[R-390] R-388 knobs, etc (LONGer Still)

[John Finigan]

Barry, you said it.  Reading this stuff makes me so
mad, I have a hard time containing myself. 
Personally, I received a R-390A last friday in trashed
condition, due to nothing but the seller's apathy in
packing.  Common sense could tell anyone that a 75 lb
plus radio in ONE sheet of bubble wrap, in a flimsy
U-haul box will not survive the UPS gorillas.  Seller
was very quick in replying to emails until he got his
money, since then I've tried contacting him about 6
times with no response...which leads me to an open
ended question:

Why it that almost no one has the guts to put anything
other than A+++++++++ on those eBay feedback forms?  

Sorry about the rant.  This sort of thing really
bothers me.

PS, I agree MBE is the ultimate ripoff.  Peanuts, for
example, are often on a 500% markup, and thats just
for buying a bag, not for having them put them in a
box.

John 



--- Barry Hauser <barry@hausernet.com> wrote:
> Hi Jim:
> 
> Horror stories like yours really get to me.  I may
> have to take a walk
> around the block to shake the palpatations, shakes
> and tendency to turn
> green and burst out of my shirt.  (Also, everything
> looks red.)
> 
> Hot button -- Mailboxes Etc. -- on top of the ripoff
> artist and general
> rotten b-----d in question..
> 
> Before I forget -- yes, it's the shipper who's
> supposed to file the claim,
> however, if things were truly as you said, the MBE
> was the shipper of record
> in your case.  I always cringe if someone wants to
> use one of them to ship
> me something.  Despite that commercial they ran up
> to a few months ago --
> experts in packing, hah! -- all they know from is
> flimsy overpriced cartons,
> USED, pre-crumbled peanuts, and bubblewrap.  They
> charge for all three and
> mark up the UPS charges anywhere from 15 to 100%
> over what you'd pay to UPS
> directly.  The margin is actually higher because
> they are daily pickup
> shippers and get a volume discount.  There is also
> now some ownership
> connection between UPS and MBE.
> 
> Actually, $88 sounds cheap for them for 135 lbs. 
> Must have been a
> relatively short distance.  Were you contacted by
> UPS for evidence of the
> loss?  May be you should go after that MBE.  If they
> really shipped it
> (would show on the label), THEY would have had to
> file the claim and would
> have received the money from UPS.  Of course, their
> customer who ostensibly
> paid them in the first place was your seller, and
> that's who they'd remit
> to, but .... might be worth a try.  May still be a
> reach, I dunno.
> 
> It also tars me that there are so many sellers who
> are quick to sell heavy
> relics at high prices and then just dump them in a
> box or trot off to an
> MBE.  (Did the seller advertise -- "must be
> professionally packed"?)
> 
> I had a recent experience on a private sale.  A
> large open reel deck with
> overhead console.  Negotiated a price and a
> more-than sufficient allowance
> for shipping and packing materials.  Next I hear
> from him - he shipped it --
> from an MBE clone place.  Needs another $100 to
> cover it.  Cost me double
> what it cost you for coast to coast, but half the
> weight.  Never again.  If
> a seller wants to benefit from getting a good price
> by offering his stuff
> nationwide, or wider, vs. local pickup, then he
> should take the
> responsibility for packing it properly himself.  The
> item = the item
> delivered intact and whatever it takes to do that. 
> There was no damage in
> this case, though the packing was the usual crap.  I
> saw the receipt.  Oh,
> and yeah, the tape deck wasn't exactly up to snuff
> -- like 3 out of 4
> channels worth and there was a major cosmetic "blem"
> that went unmentioned.
> And this wasn't my wife ordering it -- silly me.
> 
> Next time I catch wind of "professionally packed",
> I'll pass, thank you.  As
> for the gross misrepresentation involved in your
> case, Jim, ideally these
> people should be handled along with the other
> "illegal combatants".
> Military tribunal made up of disgruntled boatanchor
> vets after a bad day.
> Tarred with ukkumpucky and PCB's, feathered with
> used peanuts and shoved out
> the side door of a vintage restored Dakota at 10,000
> feet, over a toxic
> waste dump.  Or maybe more of a perfect-justice
> solution -- repackage/label
> everything in their homes.  Like the orange juice
> gets swapped with the
> Liquid Plumr, hot 'n cold pipes switched, DC at the
> wall outlets, swap the
> tuna labels with the ones on the cat food, etc. 
> Good object lesson and
> re-training on the consequence of things not being
> "as advertised".  Or
> maybe, bubble wrap the jerk and throw him in a
> flimsy box with some peanuts
> and ....
> 
> My apologies to the list for the self-indulgence
> here, but this hits a hot
> button and it hasn't popped back out yet.  Also,
> this list is about care &
> feeding of vintage gear, including repairs and
> restoration.  Let's face it,
> the more serious damage and wear and tear lately is
> coming from
> irresponsible shipping and 2-7 days in transit than
> 40 years of hard use and
> bad storage -- not leaky caps or drifted resistors. 
> Then there's
> mind-bending and heart-rending variance between the
> actual "item" and
> "virtual reality".  Many R-390's and other gear are
> bedeviled by a case of
> severe "cognitive dissonance" whereby the graphic
> pixellation and ascii text
> descriptives don't quite correspond to the physical
> structure of the device.
> (You do know everyone, that jpegs automatically
> smooth out sections as part
> of the compression process?)  Naw, the graphic and
> textual representations
> must be right - the "item" must have gotten itself
> re-transmogrified during
> shipment, as if there was a malfunction in the Star
> Trek transporter and the
> molecules didn't reassemble quite right at the
> delivery point, so arrives as
> something not quite @MINT@.  Probably forgot to type
> the "@'s" at the
> transporter console. ("Hey, it was working when I
> shipped it.")
> 
> ARGGGHHH!
> Barry
> 
> 
> 
> 
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